Rep. Ron Paul is not conceding the GOP’s Maine caucuses, which state party officials and major networks called Saturday for rival Mitt Romney.

With 84 percent of precincts reporting, Romney has 39 percent to Paul's 36 percent, and Maine GOP Chairman Charlie Webster declared Romney the winner Saturday night, following a week-long series of caucuses.

But in Washington County, where Paul had expected to perform well, the caucus was postponed until Feb. 18 due to an expected snowstorm. Washington County Republican Chairman Chris Gardner told the AP he had no idea when the caucuses were postponed that his county would no longer count toward the grand total.
“This is an outrage," John Tate, Paul's campaign manager, said in an email to supporters. "But our campaign is in this race to win, and will stay in it to the very end."

Paul's campaign has accused the local GOP of postponing the caucuses to prevent the results from being reported on Saturday, arguing that "just the votes of Washington County would have been enough to put us over the top."

The campaign is also dismissing the notion that weather was a reasonable excuse for the caucuses to be put off.

“This is Maine we’re talking about," Tate said. "The Girl Scouts had an event today in Washington County that wasn’t cancelled!"

Paul's aides have maintained that the Texas congressman will wind up with the most delegates from Maine, despite Romney's apparent victory Saturday night. Maine's caucuses are non-binding, and delegates are selected at a state convention in May.

"We were a little bit disappointed last night," Paul said Sunday on CBS's Face the Nation. "But we were disappointed that the one county where we have done the best in the past, and we were expected to do the best, they canceled their caucus."

Paul spokesman Jesse Benton said the campaign was confident it would control the Maine delegation at the GOP nominating covention in August in Tampa, Fla.

For the record, there is a 194 vote difference, and the areas they stopped counting are Paul heavy areas. This is after they opened up last minute caucus locations in Mitt Romney favored areas.

Politics at work.

banyon

02-12-2012, 04:12 PM

area(s) plural? What were the other ones besides Washington county?

patteeu

02-12-2012, 05:04 PM

area(s) plural? What were the other ones besides Washington county?

I suspect that there are multiple precincts in that county.

Pioli Zombie

02-12-2012, 06:18 PM

Scum

FD

02-12-2012, 07:05 PM

Its a conspiracy, man!

FD

02-12-2012, 07:38 PM

Maybe I spoke too soon, here is a good post from Frontloading HQ, which is the best source I know of for state-by-state delegate minutia (although the guy is a terrible writer):

No Conspiracy in Maine
There was quite a bit of ex post facto finger pointing going on in the Twitterverse -- FHQ's tiny circle of it anyway -- last night after the Maine Republican caucuses results were released by the state party. There was a lot of handwringing over the -- according to Google Elections -- nearly 17% of precincts that were not reporting results last night. Now, the Maine Republican Party advised those localities holding caucus meetings to hold them between February 4-11. But as FHQ has pointed out, several areas caucused early and others will caucus on either February 18 or March 3. However, only those caucuses that were conducted on or before February 11 were -- and will be -- counted in the final straw poll count. Well, in a close election -- one decided by just 194 votes1 -- having votes not counted in the straw poll from anywhere is a problem.

...on its face anyway.

But that leaves two unanswered questions:
1) Is not counting those caucuses in the final non-binding straw poll really a problem?
2) If so, how big of a problem is it?

Now, as is our custom, FHQ will avoid the normative question of whether caucus votes totals being excluded from the total straw poll vote should be viewed as a problem. That is a question that the Maine Republican Party is best positioned to answer. But the answer is pretty obvious as to why the totals are not being counted. [The problem is that it has not been explained all that adequately by the Maine Republican Party.]

How obvious? For that, let's glance back at the vote totals from the 2008 Maine Republican caucuses. [Here are the relevant localities isolated from the full dataset.] First of all, there is an equivalence issue here as the Maine Republican Party in 2008 reported total towns reporting and not the precincts reporting that Google, the AP and others are using in 2012. From the party's perspective, 95.95% (332 of 346) of all towns reported results in 2008. That denominator -- 346 towns -- is based on the number of towns that had announced caucuses.2 FHQ does not know how much of an issue that is in the grand scheme of things in this case, but it is worth noting.

The towns yet to hold caucuses are in three counties -- Hancock, Kennebec and Washington. With the exception of Washington County -- where snowstorms postponed until February 18 caucuses that were originally scheduled for February 11 -- the sites within Hancock and Kennebec were previously scheduled outside of and after the window designated by the state party for holding caucuses. In other words, if there is a gripe about the certification of these results without certain areas, then the complaint about Washington County should be the loudest.

Still, combined, caucuses in those same areas -- if they had announced caucuses in 2008 -- only accounted for 148 total votes (out of 5431 votes statewide) four years ago.3 That's 2.7% of the total vote in 2008. More importantly, 113 of those 148 votes were in Washington County. Both totals are less than the margin by which Romney edge Paul last night in the straw poll.

Of course, as the Paul campaign pointed out last night, the straw poll is less important to them than the delegate count. Whether Paul is/was able to cobble together enough votes in the remaining precinct caucuses to pull ahead of Romney is not as important -- to the Paul campaign -- as is gobbling up delegate slots to the district/state conventions from not only those straw poll-excluded areas but statewide.

But back to the main questions: Were the Maine caucuses rigged as some are claiming? No. First of all, the Maine Republican Party did not go out of its way to single out these areas that will hold caucuses over the next two weeks to go later than everywhere else. The localities voluntarily opted for a time outside of that window, knowing that the state party planned to release straw poll numbers on February 11. Secondly, even if it was rigged, the state party could not have picked a collection of areas less equipped to swing the election. Is it a problem that those areas will go later than the rest of the state? FHQ will leave that question to someone else. The bottom line is that Ron Paul could have won all the votes in those areas and still come up short in the straw poll. Now, having said that, the Paul campaign could certainly focus on dominating those caucuses over the next two weeks and gathering all the available district/state convention delegate slots.

--
1 Eyeballing it, that looks like a small number, but the reality is that that 194 vote margin was enough to provide Mitt Romney with a fairly comfortable 3.5% victory in an election with 5585 votes cast. That is a level that would not trigger an automatic recount in a general election.

2 One additional point of clarification needed here from the Maine Republican Party is whether towns with "announced" caucuses were states that held them on or before the February 1-3 window in which caucuses were held in 2008. If they were announced but perhaps after February 3, were they "announced" in the eyes of the party in the linked tabulation above? FHQ doesn't know. Whether there were any localities with caucuses after February 3 is also unknown.

3 Adjusting that 148 vote total from 2008 for the modest increase in turnout from 2008 to 2012 would only increase the total number of votes in these areas to 152 in 2012. Admittedly, that's a crude estimate, but it provides a decent baseline for comparison.

http://frontloading.blogspot.com/2012/02/no-conspiracy-in-maine.html

DementedLogic

02-12-2012, 07:53 PM

This was a poll in one of the districts that has not yet had their caucus.

In District 57, however, Texas Congressman Ron Paul was the favorite among Republicans. Paul earned 237 votes in the non-binding poll, followed by Santorum’s 209 votes. Mitt Romney had 105 votes in the district, Newt Gingrich 61 votes.

http://www.swcbulletin.com/event/article/id/19962/

Bump

02-12-2012, 08:31 PM

It wouldn't matter if 100% of people voted for Ron Paul, big businesses don't care for him and that's the only thing that matters. ROFL at you idiots who go and vote.

Iowanian

02-12-2012, 09:58 PM

It seems the whole country is out to get ronpaul, and by "out to get him" I mean "never vote his Mr MaGoo ass into POTUS.

BucEyedPea

02-12-2012, 10:39 PM

Its a conspiracy, man!

What a stupid post!ROFL

BucEyedPea

02-12-2012, 10:42 PM

Whether they knew it was called or not, the media shouldn't be calling it as a final vote.

I like the part of how much endurance matters to become a delegate. Mitt's base just doesn't have the enthusiasm.

I don't agree with his comparing how Paul did in that county in 2008. I'd go by what's happening there currently.

Taco John

02-14-2012, 02:51 PM

Politico: Maine objections getting serious?

By ALEXANDER BURNS | 2/14/12 2:52 PM EST
As far as national political types are concerned, the Maine presidential caucus has been over and done with since Saturday; Ron Paul supporters' objections to the outcome have been treated more or less as sore-loser griping.

The Bangor Daily News reports, however, that local complaints about the Maine process have been building, as communities that held their caucuses before Feb. 11 learn that their votes didn't necessarily factor into the statewide count:

All along, state GOP officials said communities knew that their votes would not be included in the final results if they did not hold their caucus by Feb. 11.

However, a review of the town-by-town results released Saturday by the Maine GOP suggests that some communities that had caucused prior to Feb. 11 were not counted. Nearly all Waldo County towns held caucuses on Feb. 4 but those towns were blank in the results released by the state party. Additionally, Waterville held its caucuses ahead of time but were not included in the results.

Waldo County GOP Chairman Raymond St. Onge said the results were sent to the state party on Tues., Feb. 7. He said those results probably would not have changed the outcome but was disheartened the votes were not included. …

Some big names already are urging the party to reconsider.

“I spoke with Chairman Webster [Saturday night] to express my strong view that our votes must count and to make the point that they certainly will count in the court of public opinion and in the media,” Senate President Kevin Raye of Perry said Sunday in a post on the Facebook page of Dean McGuire, president of Machias Bay Area Chamber of Commerce.

Regardless of how it affects the Romney-Paul count, Maine's cleanup operation can't be good for the already beaten-down caucus tradition itself.

Taco John

02-14-2012, 02:53 PM

Pressure mounting for GOP caucus reconsideration

AUGUSTA, Maine — Pressure is on the Maine Republican Party to reconsider its weekend declaration that Mitt Romney won the state’s caucuses.

The Maine GOP announced Saturday that Romney narrowly edged Ron Paul, 39 percent to 36 percent, in a nonbinding presidential preference poll taken during the caucuses. The margin was fewer than 200 votes.

A number of communities were not included in that poll because they had not held their caucuses in time. Washington County Republicans postponed their caucuses, originally scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 11, because of a pending snowstorm and will now meet this Saturday. Other communities across the states also have caucuses scheduled for this weekend and later this month.

All along, state GOP officials said communities knew that their votes would not be included in the final results if they did not hold their caucus by Feb. 11.

However, a review of the town-by-town results released Saturday by the Maine GOP suggests that some communities that had caucused prior to Feb. 11 were not counted. Nearly all Waldo County towns held caucuses on Feb. 4 but those towns were blank in the results released by the state party. Additionally, Waterville held its caucuses ahead of time but were not included in the results.

Waldo County GOP Chairman Raymond St. Onge said the results were sent to the state party on Tuesday, Feb. 7. He said those results probably would not have changed the outcome but was disheartened the votes were not included.

As of early Tuesday afternoon, St. Onge said he had not received an answer from the Maine GOP on why Waldo County’s results were omitted.

Maine GOP Chairman Charlie Webster said Monday that including all caucus votes likely would not change the outcome of the state’s preference poll. Asked whether the party would consider updating the result to include all communities, he said that is up to the state party committee, which meets next month.

Some big names already are urging the party to reconsider.

“I spoke with Chairman Webster [Saturday night] to express my strong view that our votes must count and to make the point that they certainly will count in the court of public opinion and in the media,” Senate President Kevin Raye of Perry said Sunday in a post on the Facebook page of Dean McGuire, president of Machias Bay Area Chamber of Commerce. “The fact that our local Republican leaders placed the safety and well-being of their friends and neighbors ahead of politics should in no way lessen the importance of our votes in the nonbinding straw poll.

“Next Saturday, Washington County’s straw poll votes will be counted and announced publicly. It is my position that the Maine Republican Party must acknowledge them, despite the weather delay that pushed our caucuses back a week.”

L. Sandy Maisel, professor of government at Colby College and a Democrat, said the

perception seems to be that because the Maine Republican Party establishment largely supported Romney, it was selective when tallying the results.

“It sure looks like they counted what they wanted to count,” he said.

Paul supporters have taken to Facebook to generate interest in Maine’s remaining caucuses. Even Paul supporters in New Hampshire are planning a get out the vote effort in Washington County’s biggest towns this weekend.

In 2008, only 113 Republicans caucused in all of Washington County, according to Webster, and only eight of those voters supported Paul.

But Maisel said that’s not the point. Even if the results don’t change, the party needs to acknowledge that perception is louder than reality at the moment.

“I think this is a red flag to people that want to be part of the party organization because that organization doesn’t seem to exist,” he said. “They came up with a bad process and then decided ‘we can get some publicity.’”

Maisel said he thinks the caucus process should change but doubts that it will.

“To have a beauty contest preference poll makes no sense,” he said. “They should be electing delegates who are pledged to a candidate.”

Nate Silver @fivethirtyeight
Both the Iowa and Nevada state GOP chairs resigned after their caucuses. Betting that total will go up.

vailpass

02-14-2012, 03:22 PM

It's a conspiracy man!

oldandslow

02-14-2012, 03:25 PM

No conspiracy, but it does illustrate ineptitude.

Repubs - one of the major reasons lots of folks were considering not voting for BO was his immaturity in office...i.e. ineptitude.

Romney, for example, has tended to show he is not below the office. However, you folks surely are making it hard to continue to believe that.

Billay

02-14-2012, 03:30 PM

These are the people in charge of helping us defeat Obama? Republicans don't stand a chance.

BucEyedPea

02-14-2012, 04:12 PM

It's a conspiracy man!

Aren't you someone who believes in the conspiracy that Iran is making a nuclear bomb?

BucEyedPea

02-14-2012, 04:17 PM

No conspiracy, but it does illustrate ineptitude.

Repubs - one of the major reasons lots of folks were considering not voting for BO was his immaturity in office...i.e. ineptitude.

Romney, for example, has tended to show he is not below the office. However, you folks surely are making it hard to continue to believe that.

Well, per this PPP Romney's poll, Romney's numbers are also going down as the most electable against Obama. Santorum's are rising. Seems to me GOP voters are either following a trend, this is the new flavor of the month until more vetting, or they actually like Santorum based on what they think they know about him, which is not much.

Still it's Paul, if you read down further that does "the best of the Republican candidates with independents, with only a 1 point deficit to Obama."

Well, per this PPP Romney's poll, Romney's numbers are also going down as the most electable against Obama. Santorum's are rising. Seems to me GOP voters are either following a trend, this is the new flavor of the month until more vetting, or they actually like Santorum based on what they think they know about him, which is not much.

Still it's Paul, if you read down further that does "the best of the Republican candidates with independents, with only a 1 point deficit to Obama."

Soley because it was reported in another article I happen to be reading. Not because it's a conspiracy, as you seen to imply.

BTW, Rasmussen has been charged as being a Republican polling site by Democrats.

I am not a Romney-hater though. I said I'd vote for him before I'd ever vote for Santorum. I just don't think he'd repeal Obamacare or cut spending.
If the SC repeals it I said I would consider him in the national. I also defended him against the Gingrich anti-capitalist attacks. Such hate!

BucEyedPea

02-14-2012, 04:53 PM

No conspiracy, but it does illustrate ineptitude.

Repubs - one of the major reasons lots of folks were considering not voting for BO was his immaturity in office...i.e. ineptitude.

Romney, for example, has tended to show he is not below the office. However, you folks surely are making it hard to continue to believe that.

I don't think it's Romney personally, but the GOP Establishment that wants Romney. They have pulled out all the stops to make a Romney nomination possible beginning with changing the rules on how the primary season was to unfold with the winner-take-all.

Waldo County GOP calls for censure of state chairman
Party members angered that their votes weren't counted
By Ethan Andrews | Feb 15, 2012

Controversy over the omission of local Republican caucus results from statewide tallies drew a larger-than-usual crowd to the regular meeting of Waldo County Republicans Feb. 14, a meeting which ended with a strong call to action.

Many of the 19 attendants on Tuesday night hailed from towns that had caucused on Feb. 4 at a countywide event held at Troy Howard Middle School in Belfast, the results of which were largely missing from the tallies that factored into an announcement by state party officials last weekend declaring Mitt Romney Maine’s winner in the presidential preference poll by a narrow margin over Ron Paul.

The discrepancies, along with the apparently unrelated decision by party officials to declare a winner without results from Washington County where caucuses were postponed due to a storm warning, energized Paul supporters in the days after the announcement.

And while some of that partisan fervor was evident at the meeting of Waldo County Republicans, the main concern voiced was the fact that 17 of the 18 towns that caucused together on Feb. 4 turned up blank on the official Maine GOP tallies, which were listed by town in a press release issued after the announcement on Feb. 11.

“I saw the results and saw Winterport: zero. I was like, whatever,” said Aaron Prill of Winterport before the Feb. 14 meeting of county Republicans. Prill voted at the Feb. 4 caucus, but figured maybe there was an error in the statewide results tally. “Then I saw Belfast: zero,” he said. From there he saw the pattern.

Prill, who works in Bangor, had attended very few party events but made a special trip to the evening meeting on Feb. 14.

“This was a special occasion,” he said.

Ray St. Onge, chairman of the Waldo County Republicans, shared an email he received from state party officials stating that the omission of the countywide caucus results was one of a handful of clerical errors made in tallying the statewide results. The brief email ended with the assurance, “We are working on clearing this up.”

David Parkman of Palermo, who along with his wife Cheryl hosted a separate caucus for their town on Jan. 29, called the 2012 Maine Republican caucus process “a disaster,” adding that he’d prefer no caucus on the presidential race if the results were going to be subject to debate.

Prill asked his fellow Republicans to leave aside the controversy in Washington County and focus on the discrepancies in the results of the caucuses held before the official party announcement.

The Maine Republican Party has said it plans to consider questions about the caucus at its March 10 meeting, but Prill noted that would be after “Super Tuesday” — March 6 — when 10 states hold primaries or caucuses, including Georgia, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, Oklahoma and Massachusetts, each of which send more than 40 delegates to the national convention. Maine sends 27. Of the 10 states polling on Super Tuesday, only Vermont, with 17, sends fewer.

“Let’s get this cleared up before Super Tuesday makes this all irrelevant,” said Prill.

A motion derived from a written statement by Dawn Marie Clark was made for a vote of no confidence and a recommendation that Maine GOP Chairman Charlie Webster be removed from his position.

The idea was popular with some, but St. Onge questioned whether the vote would add to an already-tumultuous situation. He qualified the statement saying he would defer to the wishes of the group present on Tuesday night, but others agreed that it might be better to temper the message.

David Parkman recommended calling for Webster to be censured as an alternative.

“I agree with [others who are angry]. There was a rush to get this vote published,” he said. “But we’re coming up to the convention. It makes a big mess to get someone new in there.”

Though some felt a slap on the wrist was not enough, Parkman’s amendment was accepted in a split vote and the amended motion — to draft a letter indicating a vote of no confidence and calling for Webster to be censured — passed easily.

There were some questions among attendants about what would be included in the letter, and St. Onge, who offered to draft it, said he would seek guidance from committee members before sending it to be sure he was expressing the will of the group accurately.

“I don’t see what’s so hard about writing it,” said Parkman. “We’re unhappy! We have no confidence in the man.”

Prill suggested limiting the letter to the language of the motion.

Brad Williams of Belfast asked that the letter include clarification as to how the clerical error occurred and who was responsible.

St. Onge agreed to ask for further explanation on the accounting. He also expressed some sympathy for those entering the data, noting that the state has around 500 municipalities.

“I understand when you type that many numbers in, the transposition errors,” he said, referring to cases where numbers in the tallies were reportedly reversed.